1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a generic quality of service (“QoS”) protocol for user applications communicating via a network connected between a client machine and a server machine. More specifically, the invention provides a generic QoS protocol and architecture for ensuring user applications with a desired level of QoS, regardless of the underlying processors, operating systems, network hardware, and transport protocols utilized by the user applications.
2. Related Art
Establishing guaranteed QoS for user applications communicating over a network represents a highly-desired goal in the electronic communications art. There is presently a need to provide individuals, including applications developers, software engineers, and network users, with a simple and efficient QoS protocol that allows a given application running on a client machine to communicate with another application running on a server machine while guaranteeing a desired QoS level throughout the entire period of communication. Applications using the communications network should be able to exchange data across a channel having guaranteed bandwidth and QoS policies, regardless of the underlying processors, operating systems, and network architectures across which the data may traverse. Present QoS solutions, however, are limited to specific transport protocol types and network architectures, and lack the ability to span a variety of such protocol types and architectures.
Accordingly, what is desired, but has not heretofore been provided, is a generic quality of service protocol and architecture that provides user applications running over a network with a desired QoS level regardless of the processor architectures, operating systems, network architectures, and transport protocols used by the applications. What is also desired is a means for maintaining the desired QoS level by performing real-time monitoring and management of network and application parameters including bandwidth, buffer, and cache status, and which can be easily implemented and managed using an Application Programmer Interface (“API”).
The Multimedia Communications Forum presented a QoS interoperability model for promoting the use of heterogeneous broadband access networks to support end-user applications. This model supports connection of broadband access networks via switches or combinations of enterprise and backbone networks. According to this model, QoS interoperability is achieved provided that applications running on the network can communicate with a desired QoS.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/435,549 to Vaman, et al., filed Nov. 8, 1999 and currently pending, discloses a method of QoS negotiation between client and server machines for facilitating simultaneous use of and access to Asynchronous Transfer Mode (“ATM”) and Internet Protocol (“IP”)—based networks, wherein desired QoS levels are supported for user applications communicating thereon.
Efforts by the Internet Engineering Task Force (“IETF”), IEEE 802, and ASC T1 are currently formulating a specification for QoS for transport protocols only. These efforts, however, do not define a generic QoS protocol and maintenance procedures thereof.
None of the previous efforts, either alone or in combination, disclose or teach the benefits of the method and apparatus of the present invention, nor do they teach or suggest all of the elements thereof.